Robert Downey Jr. Covers 'Esquire' May 2012

On fatherhood and his newborn son: “I guess here’s what’s come to me in the last three weeks: That anticipation and fear are going to come back. Am I going to know what to do with them? Does any new parent, even if you’re not a first-time parent, ever really know what to do? Only thing you have to do, the only requirement, if you can hack it, is to not transfer your own discomfort in the moment to this fresh soul, right? You got to be mindful. I don’t want to be so confident in myself. It’s that balance between being relaxed enough to not be communicating anxiety and present enough to not be creating the very thing that you were anxious about by being so relaxed — because I’ve seen that parenting style, too.”

On his wifeSusan: “If I picked for you the 10 worst moments of my life, they were probably the 10 most defining moments of my life. Whether they’re that complete rejection by a girl that doesn’t even know you’re crazy about her, and you are distracted riding your bike to school, and just as you look over at her, you take a complete ass-over flip into a shrub. And the girl just looks at you and keeps on walking with an expression that says, ‘Who is that schmuck?’ And that’s every bit as significant to me as the moment I met Susan, in a rehearsal space with Halle Berry in Montreal 10 years ago, and thought, Wow, she’s pretty damn cute for a boss.”